The direction new home building in Ontario will take -- and, specifically, how the much ballyhooed Smart Growth plan will embrace residential development -- will likely become clearer with Wednesday's Throne Speech.
Details are in demand after Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion officially presented the year-long Smart Growth panel's findings to provincial Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister David Young last week. With priorities set on preserving the environment, controlling urban sprawl while improving infrastructure, expectations are high that there will be news of a specific transit strategy -- particularly a 10-year GO Transit plan for a bus rapid transit line from Halton to Durham regions -- that can begin to address the escalating problem of gridlock.
Yet, says Ontario Home Builders Association president Rob Cooper, the panel's report failed to address balanced growth.
"We especially think they left out the discussion regarding balanced growth outside urban areas," Mr. Cooper says, pointing out that 25 per cent of last year's 83,000 new home starts in Ontario were outside urban boundaries. "I understand the importance of the impact of development on the environment, but we need more focus on a development strategy that works hand in hand with the environment."
Jim Faught, Smart Growth panel member and executive director of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, agrees there is a need to plan for growth beyond existing urban areas.
"We can't turn the Titanic around in a day," Mr. Faught says. "We know there will have to be growth beyond current urban centres."
Delivering to buyers who want houses with yards, and not high-density urban infill housing, remains the question for the new homes industry.
"We don't want to cut down every tree or stem every stream. We're not the big bad guys everyone makes us out to be," says Joe Valela, president of the Greater Toronto Home Builders Association.
"But we do need balance. Not everybody wants to live in a highrise. It's very important that builders are at that table when the committee is formed to determine the details of Smart Growth," Mr. Valela says.
"Builders are ultimately the ones who will meet the demands for the coming growth," he adds, noting that new home purchases in the Greater Toronto Area are on track to hit 48,000 to 49,000 this year -- close to last year's record-breaking 55,000 sales.
"Billions" was the estimate of the cost of recommendations in the 90-page Smart Growth report. And that unnerves both builders and homebuyers, who historically have paid for infrastructure through development charges and property taxes, respectively. Sharing costs across all levels of government, as well as gas taxes, were options touched on by Tina Molinari, deputy housing and municipal affairs minister, in her report last week entitled "2003 and beyond: A smart approach for Ontario's urban centres."
But Mr. Valela says, "It's difficult to get the focus when we have municipal and provincial elections coming up and a federal leader with one foot out the door. We need our governments to sit down and talk about this, but who are those governments going to be?"
Designing a big-picture strategy becomes a personal issue for new home buyers tomorrow when they sit down with The Designer Guys.
Hosts of the hit HGTV show, Steven Sabados and Chris Hyndman are scheduled for private consultations with six groups of buyers in the coming weeks. The sessions are aimed at easing the stressful process of choosing interior decor on an unbuilt house.
The real challenge, though, will be predicting the future: Some of the homeowners booked for tomorrow's tutorial at Tanglewood, a 110-house development by Orchard Ridge Homes in Oakville, won't close their purchase deals for another year.
"People are thinking big picture -- what tiles, what materials, what their colour selections should be, and how to eventually furnish around their choices," says Moira Morris, manager of marketing for Orchard Ridge. "They want to know where they should be looking, down the road."
Sponsored by TD Canada Trust, five more invitation-only sessions with Mr. Sabados and Mr. Hyndman are planned, including with Mattamy Homes buyers next Friday and purchasers with the Conservatory Group on May 10. "It's value-added, not just for the purchaser but for the builders as well," says TD's Sherry Speakman.
E-mail Jane Van Der Voort at jvandervoort@globeandmail.ca